Short Essay: The Story Of Emmett Till

How did the murder of Emmett Till and the Scottsboro Trial bring to light the racial prejudice in the South and how much did it push the Civil Rights Movement?

Both of which were beat to death and shot from talking or “flirting” with a white woman. The murder of Henry Marrow happened in the year of 1970, which was six years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and two years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The African American and white segregation should have ended before the year of 1970 even occurred, and especially before this murder happened. After Till’s murder, his mother making his funeral an open casket for the public to see what had happened to her son; this action was a huge step forward in the Civil Rights Movement for America. The murder of both of these two young men were in fear of African Americans and whites having sex and creating an offspring of a mixed child. The way things were in this time period needed to change, and people started standing up for what they believed

The Emmett Till murder shined a light on the horrors of segregation and racism on the United States. Emmett Till, a young Chicago teenager, was visiting family in Mississippi during the month of August in 1955, but he was entering a state that was far more different than his hometown. Dominated by segregation, Mississippi enforced a strict leash on its African American population. After apparently flirting with a white woman, which was deeply frowned upon at this time in history, young Till was brutally murdered. Emmett Till’s murder became an icon for the Civil Rights Movement, and it helped start the demand of equal rights for all nationalities and races in the United States.

Roy Bryant and John Milam kidnapped and murdered Emmett Till in cold blood because he flirted with Bryant’s spouse 4 days earlier. The case being that Emmett Till was “brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier” (“Aug 28, 1955: The Death of Emmett Till”) isn’t something you would hear much nowadays, but in 1955, it was unfortunately common. Curtis Jones watched Till flirt with Carolyn Bryant, the spouse of Rob Bryant. What started as a prank went terribly wrong. Not to mention that racism went into play, as Till, being a black kid trying to flirt with a white woman in the South, would never go freely.

Although many believe that racism and segregation have declined over the years, The Washington Post notes, in a 2016 analysis, that black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers (Lowery). In the 1930s and 1950s, Tom Robinson, Emmett Till, and the nine Scottsboro boys were sentenced to death after facing an all-white jury for a crime they did not commit. In 1931, nine, young, unemployed, black men were falsely accused of raping two white women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. Their sentence to death after facing an all-white jury sparked rallies and parades, which successfully changed the unfair verdict of their trial. Similarly, a fourteen-year-old boy named Emmett Till was unjustly murdered after allegedly whistling at a white store owner, Carolyn Bryant. A few days later, he was found in a nearby river, and his mother arranged for a public funeral to expose the racial prejudice her son faced in Mississippi. The perpetrators were acquitted of all charges when tried in front of an all white jury. In the Scottsboro incident, the Murder of Emmett Till, and To Kill a Mockingbird, innocent men were victims of the society’s racial prejudice and convicted of crimes they did not commit.

“They then beat the teenager brutally, dragged him to the bank of the Tallahatchie River, shot him in the head, tied him with barbed wire to a large metal fan and shoved his mutilated body into the water...and three days later his corpse was pulled out of the river” (“Emmett Till”).

Emmett Till did not receive justice, because from his death and throughout his trial, everything was based upon racism. Till’s case was examined in court by an all-white jury, who had most likely made up their minds before the trial had even started. According to “The death of Emmett Till”, “On September 23, the all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of ‘not guilty,’...”(“Death” 2) That is an extremely short time for a jury to deliberate, and it leads to questions of whether or not the jury truly deliberated, or if it was a cold case of a black boy being punished for flirting with a white woman. The courthouse in which Emmett Till’s murder trial took place was also segregated, showing that the defendant’s guilt of murdering a black person was being deliberated in

Emmett till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy who lived in Chicago. He was a fairly normal kid who was down visiting his family when he was brutally murdered for just flirting with a white girl. He was too young to understand what he was doing. He was just doing it as a joke for his cousins, which he soon figured out was life threatening. This act of violence is what started the Civil Rights Movement. So many people were heartbroken that a teenager was beat to death then shot in the head. They protested, but there was nothing they could do.

The two white men’s justification for killing Emmett Till was a single moment when Emmett located a white woman in a grocery store and began to talk with her in a flirtatious manner. Emmett’s death took place a year after the Brown v. Board Of Education where the Supreme Court’s decision was to outlaw segregation. The true story of Emmett Till influenced me because it informed me of how times of changed from back when segregation was allowed and even after it wasn’t allowed and how violent whites were to blacks. It made my view of the world more aware to myself about how to treat people and others around you. I’ve read stories discussing segregation in the past that have influenced me just as Emmett Till’s story has. A quote interprets a little bit about how I feel and how angry I feel about the death of Emmett Till, “I think the picture in Jet Magazine showing Emmett Till’s mutilation was probably the greatest media product in the last forty or fifty years because that picture stimulated a lot of interest and anger on the part

Emmett Till was born and raised in Chicago, IL by his mother, Mamie. Emmett travelled by train to Money, Mississippi where he visited with relatives and worked on a cotton farm. Emmett and his cousin went into town one afternoon to take a break from the hot sun on the farm. Emmett entered the grocery store to buy candy where a Caucasian female was working behind the counter. The female was Carolyn Bryant, and her husband Roy owned the store. Carolyn told her husband that the day Emmett was in the store, he whistled at her which was inappropriate during this time. Once Roy was aware of what happened, he and another White man went to where Emmett was living and took him in the early morning. Emmett was then beaten and kept in a barn near Bryant’s

A theme for the Mississippi Trial 1955 is justice. African Americans wanted justice and equality throughout the book. The trial of Emmett Till represented justice even though Roy and J.W were convicted not guilty because the African American witnesses were able to participate in the trial. This unfair trial will be told throughout history, which will prove the racist acts that were convicted on African Americans. Emmett Till’s mother had an open casket for her son, because she wanted

In the year 1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lynched a fourteen-year-old from Chicago named Emmett Till. His murder was part of a massive wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional. Five years later, Black students launched sit-in campaigns that turned the struggle for civil rights into a

Emmett Till was a fourteen year old African American boy who was brutally beaten and murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Emmett Till was from Chicago, Illinois and went to visit his uncle and cousin in Money, Mississippi(all). He had polio as a child which caused him to have a stutter. He lived in a working class neighborhood. Chicago was not so segregated. Money, Mississippi, however, was very segregated. He was killed by the woman;s husband and brother in-law. His friends dared him to ask the white woman out. She alleged that he made lewd advances and that he sauntered out of the store. Her husband and brother in-law gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and tied him to a cotton gin fan. Emmett Till was a young teenager

Milman. In another article called “Emmet Till” by Jessica McBirney She says, “Emmett Till’s murder became one of the most important catalysts of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. When Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in December of 1955, she said later she had been thinking of Emmett and the injustice he experienced. Her action sparked the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott, which brought the Civil Rights movement to the national

On August 28th, 1955. A young, African American, fourteen year old boy, Emmett Louis “Bobo” Till, was murdered in Money, Mississippi after flirting with a white woman (“Emmett Till”, 2014). Emmett Till’s story brought attention to the racism still prevalent in the south in 1955, even after attempts nationwide to desegregate and become equal. Emmett’s harsh murder and unfair trial brought light into the darkness and inequality that dominated the south during the civil rights movement. Emmett’s life was proof that African American’s were equal to whites and that all people were capable of becoming educated and successful even through difficulties. Emmett’s death had an even greater impact, providing a story and a face to the unfair treatment